All the Sweet Tomorrows

by Bertrice Small

  Suddenly she was aware that he was staring at her, and she raised her eyes to his, a guilty blush coloring her cheeks. His smoky blue eyes were very serious, and for a brief moment she wondered if he could have been reading her thoughts. “I was just thinking,” she said lamely.

  “About me? About us?”

  “Yes.”

  “And have you decided that perhaps it is not a good idea that we be lovers again, Skye?”

  “No, I have decided that there is a mystery about you, Adam. I know now what it is that keeps me from loving you with all my being. You don’t love me enough to fight for me, Adam.”

  He looked stunned. “That’s not so, Skye!”

  “Yes, Adam, it is. You say you love me, but that you cannot marry me because I deserve a powerful man for a husband, and you are a simple island chieftain. Well, Adam de Marisco, money buys power, and we both have gold enough to spare. You say that you cannot wed with me because one day I might meet the great love of my life, and stay with you out of misguided loyalty, making myself unhappy, which you could not bear. With the exception of my first husband I have loved completely and well all my other husbands. None was ever slow to take me to wife for fear I might meet someone else later on in my life. They wanted me enough to overcome all obstacles. Yet you will not take such a chance.

  “In a few short days I will leave England for what Cecil promised me would be a short-lived marriage to an ill man. The Duc de Beaumont de Jaspre is not, however, either elderly or ill. According to his nephew, he is a healthy man in early middle life. I may never see either you or my own Ireland again, and believe me, Adam, this marriage is not a love match.” She stood up and, moving to the sideboard, opened a drawer and took out a miniature. “Here,” she said, handing him the tiny painting. “Look upon the face of my betrothed, and tell me if that looks like a man who will be a great love to me. It is a cold face, Adam, and his eyes frighten me. His nephew’s reassurances are not encouraging, although Edmond seems to have a genuine affection for the duc.

  “So I must go to the powerful husband you felt best for me, my darling, but before I go we will have a glorious few days. We deserve it, Adam, and perhaps in that time you will tell me why you have not loved me enough to fight for me, which, my dearest, is why I have never been able to love you completely. You lack ambition, Adam, and I wonder why.”

  “And do you intend to punish me for it?” he queried her.

  “No, Adam. I intend to love you as I have always loved you. Perhaps not enough to satisfy your vanity, but then you have not given completely of yourself, either. One gets out of a relationship what one puts into it.”

  “Put this thing away,” he said sharply, handing her the miniature back.

  She took it from him and replaced it in the drawer of the sideboard. A tiny smile touched the corners of her mouth. She had at last reached him. True, it was too late now for them to do anything about being married. That opportunity was gone, and she would keep her word to Elizabeth Tudor; but if she had roused Adam enough then perhaps he might find someone to really love. She hated the thought of his being alone, even though she knew it would take a very special girl to love Adam de Marisco, and to live with him on Lundy.

  Coming back to the table, Skye brought with her a basket of early strawberries and bowls of clotted cream and sugar set upon a silver tray. Setting them down, she plucked a large berry from the basket, dipped it in the sugar, swirled it in the thick cream, and popped it into her mouth, neatly detaching the stem and leaves. He grinned at her, relieved. Then, standing up, he said, “Later!”

  “Lecher,” she purred at him, holding her ground.

  His smoky blue eyes narrowed with contemplation, and then, reaching out, he slowly began to unbutton her rose-colored caftan, his big fingers surprisingly nimble with the tiny pearl buttons. Skye started unbuttoning the silver buttons on his padded dark blue velvet doublet. He unbuttoned her to the navel and slid his hands inside the gown to fondle her breasts, delighting in her nipples, which hardened at his gentle touch, thrusting forward like thorns on a rose, to push against his palms. She pushed his doublet off, and loosened his shirt at the neckband. It opened easily beneath her touch, baring him to the waist. Playfully her slender fingers marched up his chest through the dark mat of hair, to clasp themselves about his neck.

  His hands slid upward to work her caftan off her shoulders. It fell with a silken hiss to her ankles, leaving her nude. His hands moved to tangle themselves in the heavy, raven mass of her hair, drawing her head to him so he might kiss her. He hesitated just a second, long enough to see her gorgeous eyes close, the thick dark lashes fluttering like dragonflies upon the soft pink of her cheeks. Only then did his sensuous mouth begin a delicate exploration of hers.

  He kissed her as if it were the very first time, tenderly tasting her lips, sending delightful shivers of anticipation up and down her spine. He felt her response, and exerted more pressure upon her mouth, gently forcing it open. His tongue plunged into that sweet cavern to dance a mad caper with hers until suddenly they were stroking each other with sensuous abandon. Their passions flamed simultaneously as he tore his mouth away from hers, and began kissing her closed eyes, her cheekbones, the corners of her mouth, her determined chin, the elegant tip of her nose, with hungry ardor while she moved her hands to pull frantically at his shirt, to loosen his breeches.

  “Sweet Skye,” he murmured softly, “sweet, sweet Skye.” She succeeded with his shirt, but before she could entangle him in his half-loosened breeches he swept her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. “Nay, my love, I can do that faster, and a great deal more easily than you can,” he gently admonished her.

  “Then do it, dammit, Adam. I am not ashamed to admit that I want you, and I want you now!”

  He threw his great leonine head back and laughed with pure delight. “God’s nightshirt, Skye, you’re an incredible woman! You want me, and you tell me so! Well, my blue-eyed Celtic witch, I want you also, and I suddenly find that I want you for all times, not just a few nights! What have I done to us in my pride, Skye?”

  She reached up and drew his big body down to hers. “Later,” she soothed him, “we will speak on it later, my darling.”

  He didn’t argue. His hands were sliding down her long torso, molding themselves along her waist, filling themselves with her hips, caressing her long legs. She kissed his face ardently, and he groaned with the total pleasure that was beginning to envelop them. She lay upon her back, and he said in a quiet voice, “I don’t want you to do anything, sweet Skye, but let me love you. Let me adore the perfection of your beautiful body. For tonight at least, you belong to me!”

  He lowered his head, and with his hot tongue began an encirclement of her nipple. Around and around and around until she began to whimper deep within her throat, and he took the entire nipple in his mouth, sucking hard, sending a knife-sharp pulse of rapture through her body. He began again, this time with the other nipple, and when he felt her trembling like a small, wild thing beneath him he ceased the torture, moving his large body down the bed.

  Taking one of her slender feet in his hands, he kissed it then began licking it sensuously, his tongue thrusting between the toes, slipping along the outside curve of the arch. His hungry mouth kissed, his tongue lapped tenderly in the hollows of her ankle, and when he reached her knee he began again with the other foot. Pulling himself back up level with her, he licked her chest and quivering breasts; his tongue slid easily over her torso, not missing an inch of skin as he moved along. He turned her over, and she felt the warm wetness against her shoulders, along her spine, the curve of her waist, the mounds of her bottom, the length of her legs, the soles of her feet.

  “Dear Jesu, Adam,” she gasped, “stop! You will drive me mad!”

  He rolled her onto her back again. “Then we shall be mad together, sweet Skye,” he said, and lowered his head once more, this time his tongue snaking out to touch her in her most sensitive place.

  “Ohh, yes,�
�� she breathed as she began to flame wildly beneath his impassioned touch, her beautiful body twisting under his hungry mouth.

  He felt as if he would burst with his desire as he tasted and breathed the musky sweetness of her. Finally he could no longer control his own passions, and raising his head, he drew himself up, swinging over her to thrust within her honied sheath. Like some unearthly creature, she wrapped herself about him, moaning wildly, pushing her hips up to meet his frantic rhythm. A soft scream told him that she was near her release and mercilessly he pushed her to the brink only to force her back. She cursed him furiously, and he laughed softly, admonishing her, “You hurry too much.”

  “I hate you!” she gasped.

  “You want me,” he countered, “and I want you. I have always tried to teach you patience in pleasure.”

  “Give me release!” she begged.

  In answer he drove deep into her, forcing her body into the mattress with each downward plunge of his hips. She had been grasping him tightly with her hands, but now his subtle torture sent her sharp nails clawing down his back. “Bitch!” he groaned, and then he took her mouth in a savage kiss, forcing her lips apart to catch her tongue, which he proceeded to suck fiercely.

  Skye thought she would die in that very minute. Her love juices released themselves in a hot, wild rush, crowning the head of his throbbing manhood, which liberated its own salute to her in the same instant. They shuddered together, lost in a world of white-hot desire that drained them, leaving them weakened and only half-conscious.

  He rolled off her, and instinctively she sought for the comfort of his embrace. His strong arms tightened about her as her head fitted itself into the hollow of his shoulder. His breathing was ragged, hers came in soft pants. His big hand began to stroke her, gentle, long touches that soothed them both. He sighed, and then began, “You know that I am unable to have children. As a young boy I suffered a severe fever that burned the life from my seed. Praise God it never destroyed my enjoyment of the fair sex, but I cannot give a woman a child.

  “I learned my fate when I was twenty, and had already fallen in love with a girl I sought to marry. I might have said nothing, and let her believe that it was she who could not conceive; but instead I was honest with her and her family. Her father said he would rather she enter a convent than be childless. My love said that if I could not be a real man she didn’t want me.” He sighed again. “Her father was a down-at-the-heels French count. She was his eighth child, fifth daughter. Her dowry so small that not even a religious order would have her, as they later found. I loved her back then, Skye. I do not love her now, and yet I can still hear her voice, condemning me for my lack of manhood, for my inability to father a son on her or any other woman.

  “I left France then, and returned to Lundy. I had been its lord since I was ten, when my father had died. My mother returned to France with me and my two younger sisters a year after his death. She remarried when I was twelve, and gave her new husband several children. After my betrothal was broken Lundy was my refuge, and no one there knew or cared about my inability.

  “I am known as the lusty lord of Lundy for my prodigious appetite for women. Several have even claimed their bastards are mine, and I have paid them off, glad to have my prowess attested to; but I know the truth. Then you came into my life, Skye, and I loved again; but I never admitted it to you. I have never admitted it aloud even to myself, not until now.

  “I have always called you a star, a bright and shining star, and so you are, my darling. In wealth we are equal, in lands you far surpass me, but it matters not, for you know I care little for such things. You have given children to each of your husbands, Skye, and perhaps that is what bothered me. If you wed with me you could have no other child. I could not do that to you.”

  “You were afraid I would scorn you?” she answered him. “Yet on two occasions I have asked you to marry me, Adam, and I have known for some time that your seed was barren.”

  “Ah,” he answered her, “if you had wed me after Geoffrey had died then you would have once again been separated from Niall Burke. You would not have had your little Deirdre and your infant son, Padraic. I will wager, my love, you don’t regret those two innocents.”

  “No, I don’t regret them, Adam; but I wonder if the fates ever really meant for me to be wed to Niall. For years everything had conspired to keep us apart. If I had not wed him, then Claire O’Flaherty would not have revenged herself upon him, for there would have been no need. Now he is dead, and because I must protect those two Burke children I have accepted marriage to a man I don’t even know. How much simpler had you wed me, my darling, my dearest, dearest Adam. I could love you; really love you had you cared enough to fight for me. You feared getting hurt again more than you wanted me as your wife.”

  “And if I suddenly changed my mind, Skye, would you marry me?”

  “I would have, Adam, but it is too late now. I cannot break my word to the Queen. We have an agreement for better or worse, and I will keep my part of that agreement as long as Elizabeth Tudor keeps faith with me. Had my marriage to you been a fact, and had I then gone to Cecil, the Burke lands might have been safe by virtue of my strong new husband. I, however, went helpless to the Queen, and she took the opportunity to use me for her own ends. Cecil knows that my word is my bond.”

  “How I love you,” he whispered against her hair, “and what a fool I have been, my sweet Skye.”

  “We have the next few days, Adam, and when I am gone I want you to find yourself another woman to love. If that French girl had really loved you, your barren seed would not have bothered her. She was not worthy of you Adam, but somewhere there is a girl or a woman who is. Someone who will love you for yourself, not for what you can or cannot give her. Do not be afraid to seek that woman out, my darling!

  “When Khalid el Bey died, I told Robbie I should never love again. That loving only led to pain. But without the pain, Adam, how can one know, or enjoy, the sweetness? There may be pain in your search, but when you find your love it will be all the better for the pain.”

  He hugged her close, and she snuggled deeper into his big shoulder, not seeing the tears in his smoky blue eyes as he turned his head away from her. He knew that she was right and, having unburdened himself to her, he felt better than he had in years. Still, with the unburdening came the terrible knowledge that he loved her deeply; perhaps too deeply to ever love another woman again. Only time would tell the answer, but at least they had the next few days to be together, to love each other, to make memories to carry them through the long years he envisioned ahead.

  For two days and two nights they stayed within her rooms, talking, and loving, and even fighting a bit over what she termed his monumentally stubborn nature and he termed her Irish pig-headedness. The children joined them in the afternoons to chatter and play their games, though only young Murrough O’Flaherty understood the relationship between his mother and Adam de Marisco.

  “Why didn’t you marry him?” he asked his mother in a private moment, when Robin and Willow were totally engrossed in some tale that Adam was telling them.

  “Because he didn’t ask me in time,” she answered.

  Murrough nodded. “I don’t suppose you could get the Queen to change her mind, Mother? Then you could stay here, and we should not lose you to some strange land, and a man whom we do not know. Could you ask Her Majesty? She admires you very much.”

  Skye hugged her son lightly. “I wish it were possible, my love, but it is not. The duc has been sent word of my coming as well as my miniature. He would be greatly offended if a substitute bride were sent.”

  “We could say you died,” Murrough suggested hopefully.

  “I do not think that M’sieur de Beaumont would lie to his uncle, my love. I am afraid I must go.” She patted Murrough. “It will be all right, my son. It will be all right.”

  * * *

  They went to court the next day, an unusually hot one for early May, and Skye wore one of her new gowns, a
beautiful dress made just for Beaumont de Jaspre. It was a lime-green-colored silk, its underskirt embroidered with gold thread flowers and butterflies; the sleeves sheer and full to just below the elbow, her forearms bare; the neckline extremely low in the French fashion. Several gentlemen of the court gaped quite openly as she glided by them flanked by Adam de Marisco and Sir Robert Small.

  “ ’Tis my emeralds, no doubt, that fascinate them,” she teased her escorts, and both men chuckled in spite of themselves.

  “Ah, now,” Robbie countered, “and I was thinking that it was the roses in your hair.”

  Garbed in red velvet and cloth of gold, the Queen awaited them. Her long, graceful hands were outstreched in welcome. “Dearest Skye!” Her smile was friendly. “So you come to bid us farewell.” Her gaze swept Skye appraisingly. “I know the duc will appreciate our generosity in sending him one of this nation’s most beautiful women to wife.”

  “Your Majesty is most gracious,” Skye answered, her eyes modestly lowered.

  “Yes,” Elizabeth purred in subtle warning. “I am my father’s daughter in many ways.” She smiled again. “You will be pleased to know, dear Skye, that I have confirmed your son’s rights, and appointed his grand-uncle, the Bishop of Connaught, as his guardian in your absence.” She lowered her voice. “You need have no fear, dearest Skye. The English and the Anglo-Irish in the Dublin Pale have been warned that any breach of my sworn word to you will be considered by me as a personal affront. As to your own wild Irish neighbors, your uncle will have to contend with them.”

  “Thank you, Majesty,” she replied. “I am grateful to you, and I will do my part.”

  “And we all envy the duc,” Lord Dudley murmured, “for I can vouch that Lady Burke knows how to please a man well.”

  “Why is it, Lord Dudley,” Skye asked sweetly, “that your bravery only comes to the fore when you are surrounded by others? Since you have certainly never pleased me I cannot know how it is you know that I please a man well.”